X-The band that changed my life

It was one of those defining moments in a young person’s life. My friend Scott Marcano had started dressing weird, drawing things on his jeans and raving about bands like the Dead Kennedy’s and Bad Religion. And as a guy steeped in Led Zeppelin, Tom Petty, Bruce Springsteen and the like, I didn’t get it.

As a teen growing up in Los Angeles, I had heard the Sex Pistols, Clash and other big punk bands but couldn’t really relate to the angry Brits rebellion against the monarchy, social strata and other issues. But everything changed when Scott popped a tape into my car player, and out of the speakers came an explosion of energy, raw emotion and poetry unlike anything I’d ever heard.

I barely made it through the opening verse before I was absolutely hooked. The band was LA’s X, and they would go on to become one of the most important underground bands of a generation, ushering in a new era of so-called “punk rock” and influencing tons of others including this lost teen.

35 years later, somehow the band is still going strong as it gears up for a . And despite approaching 60, singer/songwriter/bass player John Doe told me he has no apologies for still playing playing punk rock. In fact, he told me in an interview from his Bay Area home he’s downright proud to still be fronting the seminal band.

“I think we all love it. At this point we’re the last band standing, certainly out of the LA bands and out of all the punk rock bands the last one that still plays loud and hard,” Doe said.

X is part of a legendary class of ’77 that included The Sex Pistols, The Ramones and The Clash. But the band had no delusions of grandeur as it pioneered a new sound marrying the rockabilly tinged guitar of Billy Zoom and the dissonant but captivating harmonies of Doe and singer Exene Cervenka.

“We definitely knew that something was happening and there was an artistically diverse scene, but we were too busy being there trying to get up for work ,” Doe said.

The band seemed poised for a commercial breakthrough after Rolling Stone and others named 1981’s Wild Gift “Record of the Year,” and X signed to Elektra Records, one of the first underground bands to ink a major label deal. But despite a ton of critical acclaim and some limited commercial success, X never broke big.

“I suppose for some of us on different levels (it was a disappointment). On the other hand it’s worked out alright. We still have credibility that a one or two-hit wonder would not. I always thought we were too weird to break through,” he laughs.

Some might say it’s time to hang it up after all these years, but don’t tell that to the thousands of new fans discovering X thanks to a South American tour with Pearl Jam last summer. The bands will hook up again this summer for a European swing. And Doe laughs if people turn out to see an aging “icon”, that’s just fine with him.

“I saw Chuck Berry in 1973, something like that. It certainly wasn’t his prime if you want to but he was fantastic and I’m forever grateful I got to see him,” he says. “When you see someone that’s 17 or 18 and there’s a thousand people or more and you realize you’re part of something a little bigger, maybe, then you realize this is good and this is fun. It encourages you to continue.”

That’s just fine with all the people who’s musical lives were shaped by the band, especially me.

Josh Kerns/co-host Seattle Sounds

X appears Saturday May 12th at the Showbox at the Market.